Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

This passage was used for Kazantzakis' epitaph: "Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα, δε φοβούμαι τίποτα, είμαι λεύτερος."

جل ما أردته في هذه الحياة: بيت صغير، وأصيص ريحان، و زوجة طيبة...لم أصل إلى ذلك...أبدا

و صرخت : أبي .. لقد راح عنبنا .

فأجاب : نحن لم نرح. اخرس .

لم أنس هذه اللحظة طوال حياتي. و أعتقد أنها نفعتني كدرس عظيم. في أزمات حياتي كنت دائما أتذكر أبي و هو واقف بهدوء ، دون حراك على العتبة ، دون أن يلعن أو يتوسل أو يبكي . بلا حراك كان واقفا يراقب الخراب . ووحده بين الجيران كلهم ظل محافظا على كرامته البشرية. ص71

When everyone drowns and I'm the only one to escape, God is protecting me. When everyone else is saved and I'm the only one to drown, God is protecting me then too.

It is not you talking, but innumerable ancestors talking with your mouth. It is not you who desire, but innumerable generations of descendants longing with your heart. Your dead do not lie in the ground. They have become birds, trees, air. You sit under their shade, you are nourished by their flesh, you inhale their breathing. They have become ideas and passions, they determine your will and your actions. Future generations do not move far from you in an uncertain time. They live, desire, and act in your loins and your heart. In this lightning moment when you walk the earth, your first duty, by enlarging your ego, is to live through the endless march, both visible and invisible, of your own being.

Joy! Joy! I did not know that all this world is so much part of me, that we are all one army, that windflowers and stars struggle to right and left of me and do not know me; but I turn to them and hail them. The Universe is warm, beloved, familiar, and it smells like my own body. It is Love and War both, a raging restlessness, persistence and uncertainty. Uncertainty and terror. In a violent flash of lightning I discern on the highest peak of power the final, the most fearful pair embracing: Terror and Silence. And between them, a Flame.

إن الطريقة الوحيدة في تخليص نفسك هي في مساعدة الاخرين

Δεν υπάρχουν ιδέες - υπάρχουν μονάχα άνθρωποι που κουβαλούν τις ιδέες - κι αυτές παίρνουν το μπόι του ανθρώπου που τους κουβαλάει.

We, who are dying, are doing better, than they, who will live. For Crete doesn't need householders, she needs madmen like us. These madmen make Crete immortal.

پهلوان سیفاکس پیر، مشت بر سنگ لوح کوبید و فریاد زد: در این دنیا نه عدالت وجود دارد و نه رحم و شفقت.خدا چطور؟ واقعا خدایی هست؟
.صدای ما را که نمی شنود
!غلط نکنم یا کر است و یا رحم در دلش نیست

نأتي من هاوية مظلمة وننتهي إلى مثيلتها. أما المسافة المضيئة بين الهاويتين فنسميها الحياة.

"إنهم يسألونني "لم تضحك , أيها الصديق؟ " . لكن كيف أشرح لهم ؟ انني أضحك لأنني في اللحظة التي أمد يدي فيها لأرى إذا كانت الحبال الحديدية جيدة , أفكر فجأة في ماهية الإنسان , وفي السبب الذي جاء من أجله إلى العالم , وفي الفائدة المرتجاة منه"

It is our duty to help liberate that God who is stifling in us, in mankind, in masses of people living in darkness. We must be ready at any moment to give up our lives for his sake. For life is not a goal; it is also an instrument, like death, like beauty, like virtue, like knowledge. Whose instrument? Of that God who fights for freedom. We are all one, we are all an imperiled essence. If at the far end of the world a spirit degenerates, it drags down our spirit into its own degradation. If one mind at the far end of the world sinks into idiocy, our own temples over-brim with darkness. For it is only One who struggles at the far end of earth and sky. One. And if He goes lost, it is we who must bear the responsibility. If He goes lost, then we go lost. This is why the salvation of the Universe is also our salvation, why solidarity among men is no longer a tenderhearted luxury but a deep necessity and self-preservation, as much a necessity as, in an army under fire, the salvation of your comrade-in-arms.

Your first duty, in completing your service to your race, is to feel within you all your ancestors. Your second duty is to throw light on their onrush and to continue their work. Your third duty is to pass on to your son the great mandate to surpass you.

Outside the wind of Jehovah still beat on the door, trying to enter. There was no other sound. Not a jackal on the earth, nor a crow in the air. Every living thing cowered in fear, waiting for the Lord's anger to pass.